This past week, communities and the planning field lost one of their most valued advocates, mentors, and friends: Michael A. Slavney, FAICP.
Mike was a huge part of the Vandewalle & Associates formula and family. Though he retired from the company in 2022, he was then and now our Community Planning and Zoning Principal Emeritus.
Mike’s enduring legacy deserves its very own chapter in the firm’s history book. In that spirit, and to pay tribute to this remarkable human, we are publishing the unofficial “preface chapter” in a series of chapters on what built our pioneering practice.
While the whole series will be looking back to Brian Vandewalle’s early vision and the very start of the company years before, in this case we will begin with a preface and theme rather than chronology. That is: V&A as a company of people. None would dispute that Mike exemplifies exactly how a company, its reputation, and its success ARE its people.
Please watch for that first installment; “V&A History Preface: Remembering Mike Slavney FAICP, Principal Planner and Person,” on our website coming soon.
In the meantime we are offering this space to share thoughts on Mike’s immeasurable impact to ourselves and on the communities he served.